Tuesday Bytes: Consolidated, Equinix, Windstream, Cbeyond, Reliance

Zayo wasn't the only one to finish off a big deal yesterday. Consolidated Communications (NASDAQ:CNSL, news, filings) announced the closing of its acquisition of SureWest. The purchase cost $324M in a combination of cash and stock plus the assumption of about $200M in net debt. The combined company will have more than $600M in annual revenues.

And this morning Equinix finished off its purchase of ancotel. The deal boosts Equinix's connectivity options in Frankfurt, giving it a totalal of 223,000 square feet there. They also gain edge nodes in Hong Kong, London, and Miami.

Windstream (NYSE:WIN, news, filings) has been busy tuning its offerings to the SMB. Last week they expanded their IP Simple bundle nationally, unifying the capabilities of former PAETEC division Allworx with the core Windstream VoIP and Data solutions. And yesterday the company created a new bundled product combining internet access, unlimited phone, and a suite of managed IT services. Windstream's hybrid ILEC/CLEC approach remains rather unique, and they are taking aim at the soft SMB underbelly of their larger incumbent neighbors.

If there was any doubt about the cloud ambitions of cbey, the fact that they have brought in a cloud veteran to lead marketing ought to make it clearer. Paul Carmody, formerly of Internap, will take over as Chief Marketing officer, joining several other cloud-related additions to the company's management team. The idea is to sell higher margin cloud services to their low margin data/voice client list, thus making all those revenues worth having.

And way over in Iraq, Reliance Globalcom has activated the Al-Faw cable landing station, bringing direct connectivity to its new Falcon system. They have initially lit 50Gbps on each route of Falcon, with 680Gbps of initial total design capacity. Reliance is preparing to IPO its submarine cable division out in Singapore in the next week or two.